Hola amigos,
<Yes we are home again and back online> This is an extremely long reply, as I am trying to catch up on many previous posts - so I have to beg your indulgence.
Cactusjumper wrote
A few Jesuits may have been involved in mining in Mexico, and used their Indian charges to do the labor but, IMHO, it was out of the norm.
There may be some church artifacts that were hidden away around the time of the expulsion, but theft by the soldiers and local natives probably accounts for most of that......treasure.
I hear stories from people who followed these Spanish markers and trails to treasure, but not one of them has ever found anything that can be authenticated. It's all stories. Most of the time it's "I know someone" or "I have a friend who knows someone"......etc.
Gosh, after all we have been over in these threads? A "FEW" Jesuits involved? No treasures found? I must test your patience and re-post some of the info that has been posted previously, for apparently the content was missed or misinterpreted. Joe also posted, in reply to our amigo Gollum:
Being ["harshly" questioned] by the Spanish concerning mining or treasures has absolutely nothing to do with the factual truth of those subjects. After all, the Spanish soldiers were sent into the Jesuit cess-pools diving for evidence. As you know, they found......crap.
9 Galvez to Serra Sta Ana Oct 10 1768 and Galvez decree La Paz Nov 19 1768
The decree recites the discovery of various amounts of gold dust and of gold and silver bullion accumulated by the Jesuits and not accounted for to the royal treasury as required by law. It recites further as fact the maintenance of the missions by the trabajo <labor> and sudor <sweat> de los miserables Indios at the same time that the Indians are neither fed nor clothed. Wherefore it is ordered that the gold and silver aforesaid <
7650 pesos> be converted to the use of the Indians and that sinodos <salaries> of padres etc be paid from the Pious Fund MA Museo Docs Rel d las Mis de Califs Qto i
California under Spain and Mexico, 1535-1847, Irving Berdine Richman pp 405
This was a discovery of gold and silver bullion, concealed by the Jesuits of California Baja. The same province of such pretended poverty. Over 7000 pesos in 1768 is neither chump-change nor crap, Are we to believe that this was the whole of their treasures? Why had it been concealed and not reported as required by law? No Jesuit had "broken" under that "torture" to reveal the existence of this bullion. The "roundup" of the Jesuits was hardly anything like the sting operation that some have attempted to paint too - in one case the Jesuits even had tried arming their Indios to resist the Spanish authorities by force, and yes this was in Mexico. You cannot expect that some Jesuit would publish a confession of having mines and treasures hidden, when the Order fully expected to be able to return at some point in future to reclaim them.
Cactusjumper also wrote
My comments about the wealth of the Jesuit Order have been focused on the missions of Northern Mexico. Which of, or how many, of those missions show records of "massive wealth"? Many of those missions were doing very poorly in that era. Those original records still exist to this day.
It is an error to try to detach the Jesuit missions of Northern Mexico from their world-wide operations; their Baja missions were established to help maintain operations in the Philippines, the entrada into Arizona was originally intended for further establishing connections and support to those Baja missions and ultimately the operations across the Pacific. The incomes from the various missions and colleges went to Rome, not directly into the pockets of the missionaries. How much of the records can be trusted to be accurate bookkeeping, and not false representations to hide profits? I have a suggested publication for you, which I will get to in a moment; you may be shocked at the wealth held by the Jesuits on their expulsion.
We have gone over the mines; one example being the famous Vekol mine shown to Capt Walker by his Pima friends; this had been a Jesuit mine and was "lost" but the Pimas had not forgotten it's location. Several of the Jesuit colleges of Mexico owned and operated MINES, and some of the "haciendas" listed were not farms but were
MILLS for crushing and smelting ores. What do silver mines produce? It is a poor argument to say that while we know the Order owned and operated a number of rich silver mines, there is no proof that anything like treasure was accumulated! The incomes from mines you will not find listed in most Jesuit records, even though the mines must have been extracting metals -
it was not sold and thus not claimed as "income". Many of us are familiar with that sort of logic, for our own income taxes.
Cactusjumper also wrote
How do they know that the metals were shipped to Rome? Did the Jesuits put shipping labels on their loot?
Smuggling of gold was reported, in crates marked "chocolates" rather interesting when you consider that many Jesuits spent a lot of money on "chocolates"; that mass of treasure found in Rio has been discussed; tremendous fortunes were found held in various banks (especially in Holland) in the name of the Jesuit Order on their being suppressed. We can go round and round here, while you may keep on demanding to see a modern treasure hunter with authenticated Jesuit treasure, but as Mike mentioned - that we have not found them is not proof that they do not exist! There are even reports of Jesuits returning and extracting some of the loot that had been previously hidden, as in South America and yes even in Arizona.
Cactusjumper also wrote, in reply to our mutual amigo Don Jose,
Don Jose,
Don't get me wrong. I have always believed you have found something important in Mexico. It may very well be Tayopa. What I don't believe is that a find as big as that was ever worked in complete secrecy.....by Jesuits or anyone else, but especially by the Jesuits or their coadjutors, temporal or spiritual.
Would you consider something the size of Paraguay as something "
big"? The Jesuits had set up a virtual theocratic state there, and by keeping their tax payments a tenth of what they should have been (sending one dollar per Indian per year was the requirement, so they sent one tenth of the amount corresponding to the actual adult male population) even the geography of the land was kept a virtual secret from the Spanish and Portuguese authorities. A Real of mines in a remote valley would not be that difficult to keep away from prying Royal eyes, remember one of their pack trains carrying silver bullion was only encountered by accident when a Spanish explorer landed on the Pacific coast in a desperate search for food and water.
Gollum wrote
Joe,
I can't speak for Don Guacamole or Tayopa, but as far as many of the Jesuit Churches and Missions, if one reads only what most people read in text books one would have the impression that all the Missions and Churches were poor to the point of being almost destitute without the few alms (200 pesos) the King of Spain provided as a yearly stipend.
Read the works of Bolton, Burrus, and Polzer (as I know you have), and you will see that is the impression they give. It is only when you read a little more in depth (Och, Nentvig, Pfefferkorn, etc) that you get a real idea of what was possessed.
Absolutely
correct - the pretended poverty was absolutely vital to keep those donations and tithes flowing. While it may seem incredible that men would live in utter poverty while accumulating and shipping out masses of silver, we are not talking about ordinary men but those whose belief system demands such hypocrisy.
Cactusjumper wrote
Father Och is not such a positive argument as you seem to believe. Father Nentvig is often less than believable.
On what grounds do you impeach our Jesuit witnesses? You discount most (if not all) non-Jesuit sources as unreliable, and this appears to be like the familiar 'selective hearing' - to consider only those sources which agree with the Jesuit apologists.
Cactusjumper also wrote
Father Polzer did not believe in the existence of treasure (from Jesuit mines) in Northern Mexico. On the other hand, he did like to discuss the legends with those who did.
Even the apologist Fr Polzer admitted of the possibility that some Jesuit treasure(s) in the form of Church ornaments may yet be un-discovered, as was posted previously. There is reason to believe that the Indians themselves concealed the various treasures, at the bidding of their beloved padres. It is recorded that the Pimas brought out a number of silver ornaments on the return of a pair of Jesuits to Arizona in the mid-1800's, which they had kept concealed for near a century. Likewise, the Vekol mine was known to them and only shown to their great friend Capt Walker. Many of the Jesuit treasure legends can be traced to Indians who shared the secrets with earlier treasure hunters, despite the prohibition that they were only to reveal such secrets to their "confessors" (padres).
Cactusjumper also wrote, in reply to our mutual friend Mike <Gollum>
As I see it, there is more circumstantial written "evidence" for leprechauns having pots of gold than Jesuit coadjutor's being involved/working in Jesuit mines in Mexico, or is it your position now that they may have been working for themselves?
I would suggest reading
The Wealth of the Jesuits in Mexico, available on Jstor; you will find that several of the Jesuit colleges in fact owned and operated mines as was posted earlier. One colegio had mines as its only source of income, at least on paper. As to whether it was a priest or a lay coadjutor who acted as foreman, even this bit may be not too important as the Jesuits also had Novices (usually natives) and trusted Indios who acted as foremen and overseers. In fact it was the overly brutal behavior of several of these Indio foremen that lay at the root of at least two Pima rebellions, though not only those cruel men - the padres were also responsible. Once you note that Jesuits were operating mines, then re-examine the published arguments and denials from our sources like Polzer and you may wish to impeach a different set of witnesses.
As for the Franciscans, we do not have the same amount of records to examine; however it would be well to consider that 1680 Pueblo Indian revolt, and yes this occurred in Northern Mexico. The Pueblos, some of the most peace-loving people on Earth, made it a point to kill as many padres as they could lay hands on, to defile and destroy every trace of the missions; and even when the Reconquista got them to the peace table, they insisted that the padres confine their efforts to agricultural pursuits, NO mining or there would be no peace!
Wow, sorry for the extreme length of this reply, it has been a fascinating subject (for me) and I hope that my poking of the nasal protuberance into the debate can be forgiven again. You are all certainly free and welcome to your own beliefs and conclusions on whether there were any Jesuit mines and/or treasures, and I will hold no offence if the evidence does not sway your convictions. I hope for the same consideration on your part, when I must say that I find the Jesuits to be convicted of mines, enslavement and yes treasures, and will continue to search for them. It is politically incorrect to state that the Jesuits were mining in the southwest, there are plenty of historians and apologists who will deny such, but on the other hand these same Jesuits ought to be credited with their mineral discoveries and with being the first Europeans to mine and smelt metals in the southwest. Using Indios as virtual slave labor was not unique to Jesuits, all of the religious Orders did so as authorized under Spanish law, and the Jesuits did their best to keep their Indian laborers rather than lose them to the "evil" Spanish or Portuguese miners where they would "learn every vice" even though paid fairly well. Clearly, we see the missionaries quite differently, but this is due in part to differences in viewpoint. Consider how the Jesuits would be viewed by those Indios forced (yes forced) to labor by the missionaries? The padres didn't whip their recalcitrants, they had an Indio of trusted position do the actual whipping, and the punished was then required to literally kiss the hand of the man who beat him and thank him for the correction!
***One last bit; while our border regions may well be quite dangerous today, it will not remain so forever, and after all as Xerxes said - "Only by taking great risks can great achievements be accomplished." Who ever said that the Wild West was dead, after all? ***
Thank you all for your patience and indulgence, I hope that you all will find the treasures that you seek - even the leprechauns' gold! <
I will have to tell you some time of what may well be the origins of that myth! 
>
Roy ~ Oroblanco
"
Seldom are men granted good sense and good fortune at the same time." --Hasdrubal Haedus, Carthaginian senator
Coffee?
